The New York Times says 100m will pay for online news by 2030

The New York Times chief Meredith Kopit Levien has predicted that 100m people will have digital English-language news subscriptions in ten years’ time. Meredith, who took over from Mark Thompson as CEO of the NYT this month, believes that her company can command as much as a quarter of this market. The New York Times is already the largest English-language newsgroup in terms of digital-only subscriptions, reporting 5.7m in total at the end of June this year. Its total subscriptions include print, number 6.5m.

Press Gazette understands the NYT’s rough expectation is that around 100m people will be subscribing to digital English-language news ten years from now. Under Kopit Levien’s top estimate, the NYT would command up to 24 percent of this market with 24m digital subscriptions. It is estimated that that psychographic in all deciles of life, so people in their 20s, people in their 50s, everybody in between. So it’s a big audience, and NTY is getting better and better at getting to them.